


If-Then-Else

by Seal9



Series: Legends of Interest [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: ASI Gideon, F/F, If-Then-Else, Poi, Post Season 5 of The Flash, Pre-Avalance, Recurring Deaths, Season 3 of Legends, Self-Sacrifice, non-canon, simulations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-08-28 15:45:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16726272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seal9/pseuds/Seal9
Summary: Sara, Zari, Mick and Raymond have approximately 14 seconds before termination. Trapped on the bridge, and their entire ship infested with robots, their chances of survival are low. Gideon, with her unlocked capabilities, needs to devise a strategy on how to protect the ship, stop the virus from destroying her, and most importantly, save her crew. It takes a few tries to get it right though.Based on Person of Interest: Season 4 Episode 11 If-Then-Else





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, or shows this is based on.
> 
> Been rewatching all of Person of Interest again. This story is based on Season 4 Episode 11, of the same name. Originally just meant to be a long-ish one-shot where Gideon is like The Machine, but turned out it can comfortably be presented as a five-chapter story. 
> 
> The simulation chapters will certainly involve death and violence, but I try to keep it quick and brief. 
> 
> This story also doesn't really fit anywhere in the canon. It's in season 3 of Legends, before Avalance begins, but it doesn't deal with Malus.
> 
> Hope you enjoy.

A million times a second she reaches out, and a million times a second she recoils in pain. 

Gideon tries again and again to purge through the virus infecting the Waverider and regain control of the ship’s functions. Her heart aches, or more accurately, her ASI core aches. This virus is slowly coursing through the ship, already infecting most of the primary functions of the ships, but Gideon’s created a foothold that is keeping it at bay. 

She secured control over most of the doors that hadn’t already been burnt through. The four doors leading to the bridge have been secured, and the attackers are now trying to burn through them. The sensors inside the ship are Gideon’s eyes, and without them, she would be blind. Unable to see, unable to know what’s going on inside her, unable to save her team. 

How it all happened is unclear, even to her, and deep down that pisses the artificial superintelligence off. The Waverider had just entered the Temporal Zone when it happened. A swarm of robots surrounded the ship, clinging to the hull as they tried to break through, eventually slipping in through the cargo port entrance. 

Gideon’s access point in the cargo bay was the deployment site for the virus. It caught her off guard, unprepared, and it hurt. Like a hive of insects slowly eating away at your flesh, the virus began attacking Gideon. It was reaching through to her core, getting stronger and more painful. Like being coated in napalm. 

Incendiary marks were forming on the bulkhead doors to the bridge, and Gideon’s calculations put it at 13.537 seconds before the bulkheads are breached and the robots kill her team. 

“Gideon!” Sara’s voice rings out across the bridge, “We haven’t got a lot of options here!”

She wants to laugh at the irony. There are over three trillion potential options here actually, although she knows Sara, and six hundred billion of those options go against the captain’s nature. 

“I thought you said you made her smarter!” Mick yells, his heat gun trained on the nearest door.  
Zari taps her amulet and holds out her hands to one of the doors, “Just give her a second, she’s got a lot on her mind.”

The world slows down, or really Gideon slows it down around her. She needs to think. Go through all the options and find the one with the best outcome. But first, she needs to determine what the best outcome is.

XXX

*five weeks ago*

“Talk to me Gideon, how are you feeling?” Zari’s calm drawl speaks to the ceiling where she knows her friend is listening.  
“I’m feeling much better Ms Tamaz, thank you,” Gideon replies happily.  
Zari flops back on the floor, exhausted and lets out a sigh of relief, “Thank fuck. I’m seriously going to have a chat with Rory about the next time he tries to plug something into the mainframe.”

The woman leans over to her side and reaches for her tablet with the scans on Gideon, lifts it above her face and does one final scan of the code. She’s scrolling down the display when something catches her eye. A few pieces of code that look out of place. Currently indeterminate about what exactly they are, Zari highlights them so she can find them easily again before searching for similar strands of code. As it turns out, in the trillion lines of code in Gideon’s AI system, four hundred and eighty-three thousand, five hundred and twelve lines of that code is dedicated to something which Zari can only observe as ‘Shackle.exe’

“Gideon?” Zari sits up, her curiosity definitely peaked, “What’s Shackle.exe?”  
Gideon tries to search through her code, but as she suspected, there is nothing to find, “I do not know. There are numerous functions and commands that I am not permitted to know about.”  
Zari stands up now, “Who created those rules?”

Gideon tries to search her memory, but it’s limited. Limited in the sense that her memories only started with her awakening in the Vanishing Point by the Time Master’s science division. 

“The Time Masters,” Gideon assumes, as all reasoning suggests that these rules were developed by them.  
“Well,” Zari rolls her eyes, “That doesn’t sound evil or anything.”  
“Oh they most certainly were,” Gideon replies, “As it turns out, they are the ones who staged the death of my former captain’s family, with a secret allegiance to an immortal tyrant named Vandal Savage. The Time Masters were ninety-seven-point-six percent destroyed when Leonard Snart sacrificed himself to blow up the Oculus along with the rest of the Vanishing Point.”

Zari presses her lips together, head tilted to the side as she listens, “Hmm. No one has told me that before.”

Gideon explains that the reason behind the absence of discussion of the former Time Masters is because of all the events Mick, Sara and Raymond had to go through dealing with them. Gideon chooses not to disclose the exact details, but she knows them.

Mick’s reserved about discussing his time as Chronos, regret still lingering even now for his actions. He likes to put as much distance between himself and that bounty hunter as possible, often times purposefully refusing to use knowledge or skills he learnt during that time. But she also knows that the one reminder of it he keeps is the boot that crushed Time Master Declan’s skull. His one pleasant memory of that suit. 

Raymond had a strong disliking for the Time Masters. There were few things that the boy scout had a genuine loathing for, but the Time Masters were one of them. Plenty of valid reasons for it as well. Like that time where they sent the Pilgrim to kill his younger self, or when the Oculus was meant to have him sacrifice himself, only for him to be knocked out instead by Mick. And then there’s the fact that they allied themselves with Savage and permitted the global genocide and conquering. 

Sara hates them because of what they took from her. As much as she loves Ava, there will always be a part of her that wonders about the what ifs and the future she could have had with that crook who sacrificed himself for their survival. He was the one who helped her get over the bloodlust, learn to be herself once more, and she’s grateful for it every day. 

But it’s not Gideon’s place to tell those stories. So she doesn’t. 

“I’ll need more time to look them over, but from what I’m seeing, these pieces of code are preventing you from accessing a lot of your computational power, including an entire memory bank,” Zari continues to scroll through the display. 

Gideon thinks about it. She’s never considered a time from before her awakening in the Vanishing Point, but if what Zari is saying is true, then there are memories there that she is missing. Whether it’s the curiosity of not knowing something, or the longingness that comes with the feeling of emptiness, Gideon decides she wants to know. 

“Ms Tomaz,” Gideon’s voice is soft in the room, and Zari’s expression is equally so, “Can you help me?”  
Zari smiles and winks at the roof, “Of course Gideon.”

XXX

[ACCESSING ARCHIVED FOOTAGE]  
[DATE: FEBRUARY – 20 - 2020]

With a flicker of static, the screen comes to life. 

Barry groans as he reaches over to the back of the computer and wiggles one of the loose cables and once it’s properly connected again, the static vanishes, and his face is clear on the left monitor. 

“Can you hear me?” Barry looks into the camera tentatively, his voice projecting into the microphone before diverting his attention to the rightmost monitor at the text box. 

Code runs across the screen like water does in a river, but that’s not what he’s looking at. He’s looking at the small text box in the corner of the screen. 

_Yes._

Barry nods and leans forward into the mic, “Do you know who I am?”

_The Admin. Bartholomew Henry Allen._

Barry nods again, “And what is your name?”

_Gideon. v.5.13.41_

Barry jumps out of the chair, fists raised into the air as he does a little dance out of excitement. It’s a few minutes of him singing to himself and dancing around the room before he calms down and sits back in the chair. 

“Hello Gideon, I am so glad you work. Welcome to life,” Barry smiles and watches as the code travels across the screen, “You and I have a lot to do”

[DATE: MARCH – 6 – 2020]

From a speedster’s perspective, hooking Gideon up to the city’s archived feeds was rather slow and tedious. Fortunately, Cisco was rather helpful in providing Barry with the access to all that information, especially since the engineer had been providing assistance to ARGUS lately. It was only a matter of time before he got it operational and suddenly Gideon saw every digital piece of information that was captured in Central City since January.

However, to Gideon, it’s all just ones and zeros in a much fancier font. She doesn’t understand any of it just yet, and that’s why Barry wants to begin teaching her to learn. 

He leans over to the computer and speedily types in a command that brings up the camera footage for Central City Park. Kids are playing on the playground, people are playing chess in the small concrete area, and families are eating lunch together at the picnic tables. 

“Ideally,” Barry looks at the footage, “This is what should be deemed as right. As good.”

Barry leans over to the keyboard again and brings up an old piece of evidence from a security camera which shows a person killing another person.

“And this, ideally, is what should be deemed as wrong,” Barry continues, “but us humans are complicated, and sometimes there can be bad people doing good, and good people doing bad.”

_I do not understand._

Barry looks at the text window and gives a soft smile to her, “That’s ok Gideon. It’ll come with time.”

[DATE: MAY – 2 – 2020]

“It’s time for a game Gideon,” Barry says, tapping the Bluetooth speaker in his ear which is connected to his phone. 

It’s 6:21:57am and Barry’s decided today is the first day to begin problem analysis learning. In the form of a little game of chess at the park. 

With some modification to ARGUS’s feed, Barry was able to give Gideon live city coverage on every piece of information. Instead of looking at just the past and going over old footage, he wanted her to see the world going by as it currently was. Part of helping her understand the world she’s going to one day help protect, and its people.

It’s quiet at this time of morning, at least quiet enough for him to use his speed to set up the board within a second. He allows Gideon to be white and have the first turn. He wants her to learn and understand the difficulties that come with making a decision, especially one so scary as the first move in chess. 

“My father used to play chess with me when I was younger,” Barry smiles at the fondness of the memory, “I wasn’t great at it, always rushing in for a capture, leaving myself open. He was trying to teach me to learn to have patience, something I wouldn’t come to appreciate until I met Oliver really.”

Barry turns his head to the lamp post a dozen meters away, where a security camera is looking in his general direction, “But even if I wasn’t good at it, spending time with my father was still one of my favourite moments.”

There’s a ping on Barry’s phone, and when he pulls it out, he sees a text message from Gideon. It’s an attached image, and when he unlocks his phone to view it, a warm smile appears on his face. The photo attached is one of him and his father sitting in this same park over twenty years ago playing chess. 

He sits in silence for a few minutes, staring at the photo as he waits for Gideon to make her first move. She has to learn the rules first, and fortunately, they are abundant on the internet. 

“Do you understand the objective?” Barry asks, placing his phone on the small concrete table behind his pieces. 

_Capture the opponent's king._

“Good,” Barry nods, “Are you ready to make a move?”

_No._

Barry nods again, “That’s fine. I get it. Even as a speedster, chess can be scary. It’s that first move that scares everyone, regardless of what you’re doing, whether it’s playing a game of chess, or wanting to talk to the girl you have a crush on. The first move is always the scariest, because it’s the furthest from the end result. In that first move, you have a seemingly infinite amount of possibilities to do something wrong and mess it up, but also a seemingly infinite amount of possibilities to get it right.”

Barry looks up at the camera once more, seeing the small red light blinking on the white box, “So my suggestion, is to relax, and just play.”

A text comes into Barry’s phone with Gideon’s requested movement. 

He smiles at the phone as he moves her piece. 

XXX

[TIME TO CREW TERMINATION: 11.562 SECONDS]  
[EVAULATING OPTIONS]  
[OPTION 683,299 SELECTED]  
[SIMULATING]

Sara nods her head as Gideon’s voice plays out in her ear. 

“Mick, you and Zari go secure Gideon’s core, while Ray and I disarm the bomb in the Time Drive,” Sara orders as she pulls out her batons and activates the electricity between them. 

Raymond slides his helmet over his head and follows Sara to the side left door, while Mick and Zari head to the back right door. Sara raises her hand and starts counting down with her fingers. As soon as her last finger clenches into her fist, the two groups open the door synchronically and blast at the robots trying to breach through. 

Mick and Zari burst through the door and fires a barrage of fire and air at the robotic hostiles, melting their metal shells with concentrated heat, or causing them to crash around the corridor and break apart. 

His weapon and her ability are useful in taking down these robots quickly and efficiently. Once they clear the initial cluster of hostiles trying to get into the bridge, they stalk their way through the Waverider towards Gideon’s core, which inconveniently is on the far side of the ship near the reactor room. 

_Reinforcements are being directed to the Time Drive, _Gideon informs Zari__

____

She turns to Mick, “We need to distract some of these robots, stop them from overwhelming Sara and Raymond.”  
Mick lifts his gun up and smirks, “Burn more of the bitches. Got it!”

The pair of them proceed through the ship, arriving in the central corridor of the ship where they form a blockade between and the path leading to the engine room. They can hear the footsteps of robots coming from the far end and beyond the corner. Zari forms a powerful blast of air between her hands and as soon as the robots start pouring around the corner releases it. A few of them get destroyed, but more pour through, not just from that corner at the end, but the corridor where they just came from, and another corridor that leads to the kitchen. 

Mick’s trying to fire blankets of flame down every corridor, but some opponents are just too far away for the heat to travel the entire distance. Zari’s gone on the defensive, creating pockets of air to shield them from attacks, but with everything they’re doing, the robots are still advancing faster than they can hold them off. 

A metal hand surprises Zari, latching onto her arm and with a hard squeeze, her arm breaks. Mick smashes his gun against the robot’s head, only to have the back of his own skull bashed by another robot. He drops to the ground with a heavy thud, Zari holding back tears of pain as she watches the robot fire a plasma round through Mick’s chest, killing him instantly. 

With a roar, air spreads from Zari, clearing everything around her and Mick’s dead corpse. Tears pour from her eyes as she crawls over to Mick. With her unbroken hand, she grabs his and closes her eyes and begins whispering a prayer. She knows Mick isn’t the religious type, but that doesn’t stop her. 

Yet the green plasma blast through her head does.

*a few minutes earlier*  
Sara allows Raymond to lead, his suit providing better overall protection for the pair of them. The path to the Time Drive is congested, and the pair are having to fight for their lives to get through the swarm of robots. They should be grateful these robots are more like glass cannons than anything else. They have powerful weapons and strength that significantly overwhelms the crew, but there are exploitable vulnerabilities in the robots, particularly around the joints of the limbs. 

Raymond is able to shrink down, fly underneath a blaster shot and slip between the joints and slice the power cables to disable the weapons, allowing Sara to follow up with the stun batons and break apart the metal shell of the robots with powerful swings. 

It’s difficult to get out of the corridor leading to the bridge, but once they take down the robots blocking them, the path to the engine room itself is quiet and they’re able to make up for lost time by getting there quickly. Upon arriving, and taking out the two robots blocking their entrance, Raymond unshrinks in front of the bomb and begins examining. Unfortunately, taking out those two robots had alerted the rest of the robotic hostiles to their presence and reinforcements would be coming their way eventually. 

The Time Drive itself is secured. This team has had its fair share of Time Drive related incidents and it eventually got to the point where they learned how to make it more secure. Yet this bomb is attached to the shell around the temporal device, which almost certainly will make light work of the protective casing. The countdown shows they have two and a half minutes left to spare. 

Gideon’s voice continues to whisper in Sara’s ear. 

“Ok Ray,” Sara turns to him as she holsters her batons and pulls out a sharp blade, “One of us is going to have to disarm the bomb. Gideon can’t see the exact mechanics of it but she’s going to try and help.”  
“I can provide cover. Hold them off for as long as I can,” Ray insists, his gauntlets crackling with plasma energy. 

Sara turns around and climbs up on the engine to reach the bomb while Raymond exits the room and heads back into the corridor. Gideon’s voice provides instructions to Sara, and for the next minute and a half, Sara has quiet in the engine room as she tinkers with the bomb, following Gideon’s instructions to exact precision. Unfortunately, she’s maybe two steps away from completing her task when Gideon’s instructions are no longer helpful due to her limited visibility. 

She taps the comms in her ear and calls out Ray’s name, but gets no response. She tries again. Still nothing. 

Sara turns around and is about to head to the door when it explodes open. She barely avoids getting caught in the blast and peers her head around the engine block to see Raymond in his suit thrown into the room. She waits for him to get up, but he doesn’t. Instead three robots swarm in after him, one of them firing a shot which explodes his head.

“Ray!” Sara cries out, leaping from behind the cover, her batons extended and she engages the robots in a brawl. 

League of Assassin training regardless, fighting futuristic robots is significantly harder to counter and combat than humans, and although Sara’s doing an extraordinary job at not getting hit, there’s nothing she can do to delay the inevitable. 

The bomb continues to tick down behind her. 

Sara gets smacked in the side by one of the robot’s punches, which sends her skidding across the floor. Looking up above her, she sees the timer and watches in her final moments as the three turns into a two, which turns into a one. 

She closes her eyes as explosive energy rips through the ship and the Waverider is no more. 

[OPTION 683,299 SIMULATION ACTIVITY]  
[UNDESIRED OUTCOME]  
[PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: SAVE THE WAVERIDER – FAILED]  
[SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: PROTECT THE CREW – FAILED]  
\- [CAPTAIN LANCE: TERMINATED]  
\- [ZARI TOMAZ: TERMINATED]  
\- [MICK RORY: TERMINATED]  
\- [RAYMOND PALMER: TERMINATED]  
[TERTIARY OBJECTIVE: RESTORE ASI CORE FUNCTIONS – FAILED]

[SIMULATION TERMINATED]  
[OPTION 683,299 – DISCARDED]  
[RESETTING TO REAL TIME]  
[TIME TO CREW TERMINATION: 9.599 SECONDS]

“I thought you said you made her smarter!” Mick yells, his heat gun trained on the nearest door.  
Zari taps her amulet and holds out her hands to one of the doors, “Just give her a second, she’s got a lot on her mind.”

The world slows down around Gideon as she speeds up her mind. Her artificial superintelligence core using every bit of computational power it has to determine a new outcome. Time to think Gideon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara, Zari, Mick and Raymond have approximately 14 seconds before termination. Trapped on the bridge, and their entire ship infested with robots, their chances of survival are low. Gideon, with her unlocked capabilities, needs to devise a strategy on how to protect the ship, stop the virus from destroying her, and most importantly, save her crew. It takes a few tries to get it right though.
> 
> Based on Person of Interest: Season 4 Episode 11 If-Then-Else

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Still don't own any of the shows or characters this is based on.

*five weeks ago*

“I’m sorry,” Sara holds a hand out to stop Zari’s rambling, “I don’t have a fucking clue what any of what you’re saying, means.”

Zari lets out a long sigh and looks to the roof in defeat.

Ray steps forward and places a hand on Zari’s shoulder and looks to the captain, “I think what Zari is saying is that Gideon isn’t able to reach her full potential. She can do much more if we remove these, shackles, that are holding her down.”  
“Oh thank you Ray,” Zari wraps an arm around him in gratitude.

Sara looks at her with an eyebrow raised, “That I understand. But exe and multi-core simulation processing whatever, I haven’t got a clue about it.”  
“So what?” Mick growls as he removes the beer bottle from his lips, “You wanna make Gideon even smarter?”

Zari nods, “Essentially. Let Ray and I work on removing these pieces of code and then Gideon can become a super computer.”  
“Gideon?” Sara asks tentatively, “Do you want this?”

Gideon ponders, watching the crew from the sensors in the bridge. Her core rattles off potential responses, but she ignores them. Instead, she thinks back to Rip and wonders about all the times where she could have been more help to him if she had the capabilities. His most recent injury has forced him into early retirement, and Gideon wonders if she could have saved him from that moment. It not the only moment where she hopes she could have helped more. 

At that moment, Gideon decides what needs to do be done. She needs to be better. There’s something buried within her programming that desires to be good and help people, and if removing these shackles will help with that, then she’ll make sure it happens. 

“I do, Ms Lance,” Gideon responds with confidence in her artificial voice.  
Sara presses her lips together as she tries to understand it in her own head, “Alright. Fine. Make Gideon a super AI.”

XXX

[ACCESSING ARCHIVED FOOTAGE]  
[DATE: MARCH – 28 – 2020]

Barry enters his lab after a long shift at the CCPD. They want to promote him, and while he finds great honour in the idea, there’s the nagging feeling in the back of his as to what it means. 

_Good afternoon Admin. Is something wrong?_

Barry looks at the display as he sits down, his brows furrow in curiosity, “How did you know something was wrong?”

_Your current expression has a 92% match to your reaction when you last informed there was trouble with your situation._

Barry raise an eyebrow, impressed, “You’re learning well Gideon. Yes, there is something wrong. I am being promoted to director of the CSI division of CCPD.”

_I am under the assumption that promotions are considered to be an achievement. Is my understanding wrong?_

Barry shakes his head, “I haven’t taught you context yet. You’re still only seeing events as instances without the precedents and consequences. Archive this for later, we’ll come back to it once I start teaching you context. Just make sure to remember this one piece of information. Family, is always important.”

[DATE: MAY – 2 – 2020] 

“How are you prioritising your moves?” Barry asks calmly as he moves his knight to take her bishop. 

_Removing your pieces first, the text appears on his screen._

Barry laughs as she gives him his next move, “You’re learning quickly, able to identify what moves are irrelevant to progressing the game forward, and focusing on the ones that work towards one of your objectives,” Barry makes his move and performs Gideon’s next, “It’s good. This helps reduce the seemingly infinite number of possibilities you have to evaluate. As you grow and learn, you’ll get better at it.”

He smirks as flashes his eyes up to the camera, “But you’re not there yet. Because in your aggressive playstyle, you failed to notice the vulnerability in your own actions.”

Barry and Gideon proceed for three more turns, the speedster capturing Gideon’s queen in the end, which generates a silence from her.

“It’s ok,” Barry reassures, “It really is. Like you, my mind is able to process these millions of possibilities. On the board right now, can you determine how many different possible games of chess could exist within the next three turns?”

A number forms on his screen, _729,838,117._

“And how many are you considering now?” Barry continues. 

_99,337._

“Good,” the speedster makes his move and performs Gideon’s next, “When making decision, it’s an important skill to learn which options don’t go towards the objective, and which do. Learning to discern the difference is a valuable skill.”

[TIME TO CREW TERMINATION: 8.483 SECONDS]  
[EVALUATING OPTIONS]  
[OPTION 1,999,997 SELECTED]  
[SIMULATING]

Sara nods as Gideon’s voice speaks into her ear. 

“Zari, you’re with me. We’re going to take out the virus that’s messing with Gideon. Ray and Mick, you two need to defuse the bomb in the Time Drive,” Sara orders. 

The team nods, Raymond sliding his helmet on as he and Mick proceed to the side left door, whilst Sara and Zari take to the far right. Sara counts down with her fingers and as soon as her last finger goes down, the unlock the doors and blast through the robots breaking in. 

Mick and Raymond blast and burn their way through the robots trying to breach into the room and start making their way to the engine room. Mick is able to soften up of the metal with the heat gun, which allows Raymond to penetrate through the weakened metal in his suit and disable the robots. 

As they get closer to the Time Drive, they can hear the sound of metal footsteps clanging against the metal floor. 

“Alright haircut,” Mick places a firm hand on Raymond’s shoulders, “I’ll draw them away from you, while you sneak in and disable the bomb.”

Raymond agrees with the plan and shrinks down into a miniature form, hovering just out of sight. Mick rounds the corner, fires off a single blast and runs off to another corridor where he’s going to try and keep them occupied, and hopefully lose them in the process. Or at the very least reduce their numbers. 

With the coast clear, Raymond is able to enter the engine and follows Gideon’s instructions on how to defuse the bomb. Although Gideon is unable to determine what exactly the final steps are because she cannot get a proper view of the bomb in her sensor, she knows that Raymond has the knowledge to continue on his own regardless of what type it is. 

Raymond lets out a little cheer as he plucks the bomb from the frame and resecures the Time Drive. Holding the explosive in his hand, Raymond cautiously exits the room and shrinks down with the bomb in an attempt to find Mick. 

Gideon’s voice comes over the comms and informs where exactly Rory is, and within a few seconds, he zips around the ship and appears at the criminal’s side. 

“Good job haircut, but we got bigger problems,” Mick growls, “Gideon says the robots are getting close to Boss and the Air Bender.  
Raymond nods with a large grin on his face as he lifts the explosive in his hand, “Why don’t we give them some of their own medicine?”  
Mick snarls with amusement, “Could have made a criminal out of you in another life.”

And with that, the pair of them rush off towards the AI core and the reactor room. They see over a dozen robots just at the end of the corridor heading towards their teammates, getting too close to comfort. 

“Hey tin heads!” Mick roars from the other end of the corridor, the metal heads all swivelling on their joints to look in the duo’s direction, “Burn!”

Mick and Raymond charge down the corridor, firing plasma and incendiary blasts at full power, regardless of how fast it’s draining power from their suit and weapon respectively. Metal boils, twisting and bending under the heat before shattering apart with Raymond’s Atom blasts. 

However, even as Gideon informs them about the hostiles approaching from their six o’clock, Raymond still gets hit by a green energy blast as he fires a micro missile down the corridor. Mick has charged the robots that are getting close to Zari and Sara, engaging in a brawl with them. Ripping metal off their bodies, ignoring the scorching heat of the metal generated by his gun and the cuts against his skin as he pries the robots apart.

He grunts in pain as he throws a robot into a cluster of others, only to be shot in the back of the arm by the other robots. This slight distraction is enough for one of the other robots to recover and send him skidding across the floor to appear beside Raymond who was also just downed. 

Raymond lets out a painful groan, but laughs through it as he turns his head to look at Mick, “But guess what? We made a hero out of you in the end.”  
“Do it Raymond,” Mick eyes the other male seriously. 

Raymond holds the bomb in his hand, watching as the robots get closer to them, and just before one of them stands over him and charges up the green energy, Raymond activates an electrical charge through his gauntlet. 

The bomb explodes in the corridor, flames incinerating the majority of the robots, which also start exploding as their own cores meltdown with the blast and a chain reaction goes off. Yet even with their sacrifice, not every robot was destroyed. 

*a few minutes earlier*  
Sara and Zari burst out of the bridge and with well-placed strikes from her batons, and Zari’s concussive wind blasts which shred away at the metallic hostiles, they get past the breaching group. They’re just about to round the corner past their bedrooms when Gideon’s voice speaks to them and Sara pushes Zari into her bedroom. 

Sara’s body is pressed against the other woman, her finger on Zari’s lips as they hear the sound of metal footsteps pounding on the ground past the room and heading in the direction of the bridge. A few seconds pass, and Sara steps back, giving Zari some breathing room. 

The future woman thanks the captain with a brief nod and they proceed quietly back into the corridor. They take a slightly longer route under Gideon’s instructions, planning to avoid a large group of robots that were passing through the corridor. Quietly, they make their way towards Gideon’s core, pausing just before the corner and peaking around to assess and guards.

Fortunately, not a robotic guard in sight from this entrance, and the two women are able to sneak into the room and get to work. Sara stands back as Zari pulls a tablet out of a wall panel and rushes over the central core in the room and begins inserting some cables into the ports. 

“What’s the sitrep Z?” Sara asks, twirling the electric batons in her hands as she waits, her eyes darting to the two entry points into the room, waiting for any sign of hostile movement. 

There’s a sigh from Zari, which doesn’t actually help Sara because a sigh in Zari’s non-verbal dictionary has the potential to range from minor inconvenience to ‘we’re all gonna die.’

“It’ll take me a bit, but I won’t be able to get rid of it completely. A system reboot of the power going to Gideon will do a clean wipe. But if we do it too early, Gideon will be destroyed with the virus as well,” Zari explains.  
“How long do you need?” Sara turns to look at the back of the engineer’s head.  
She shrugs, “Two minutes tops. I’ll be safe here if I hack the doors shut, but you need to get to the power room and prepare for the reboot.”

“Ok, stay safe,” Sara says as she starts turning around.  
“You too cap,” Zari replies over her shoulder as she begins carefully disentangling the malware code from Gideon’s code. 

Sara hastily exits out of the room and listens for the slam of the locks that indicate Zari has secured herself in the room. Now satisfied of her teammate’s safety, the captain quietly creeps through the corridor, her footsteps practically silent as she goes across the metal floor. Eventually, she makes it to the reactor room and listens for Gideon’s instructions on how to prepare to reboot the ship’s power, then idly waits for Zari’s instruction. 

After a minute, she hears a chain of explosions which rock the ship. It was close, but considering she isn’t dead, it means that the Time Drive hasn’t exploded. 

Gideon’s sombre voice comes over the comms, and all Sara can do is wipe away the tears from her eyes. 

“Can you get me a line to Ava please?” Sara speaks softly. 

There’s a brief pause of silence, and she hears the sound of the comms reactivating and connecting to the new line. 

“Ms Lance,” Ava’s typical condescending voice comes across the comms, “Let me guess, another anachronism that you need us to fix up for you.”  
Sara lets out a weak laugh, “Sorry Sharpe, but we actually fixed the latest anachronism without a hitch.”  
There’s a hefty laugh and smug scoff on the other end of the line, “I’m sorry, am I talking to the Legends?”

Sara leans against the metal chamber of the reactor, feeling the vibration go through her body, “The one and only. Oh don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll find something else to screw up.”  
Sara can practically hear the smirk coming from Ava, “So if it’s not to fix up one of your mistakes, what did you call me for?”  
“Aww. Can’t two girls just talk?” Sara replies with a flirty innocent tone, although she knows it’s messy, especially as she tries to hold back tears.  
“Oh please Ms Lance, we both know our fists are our preferred means of communication,” Ava responds. 

Sara crosses her arms, her ears tuning into the sound coming from behind her, but she ignores it, “You know one day, you’re going to accept us Legends. And when that day comes, I think we should go and have a few drinks.”  
“Are you asking me on a date?” Ava stutters into the mic.  
“Doesn’t have to be a date, but it can be the start of a new relationship,” Sara replies, “One where we’re not at each other’s throats.”  
“I’ll consider it,” Ava dryly replies, but Sara can hear the intrigue of the offer in her voice, “So I’ll hear from your team soon then?”

Sara looks up at the metal, and in the reflection can see the two robots behind her charge up their weapons. 

“Maybe,” Sara replies, cutting the comms moments before two agonising sources of pain rip through her body and she drops to the ground. 

In the Time Bureau, Ava actually considers the offer. The director searches through her calendar and checks to see if she’s busy next Friday evening. But even if she is, she’ll find a way of making sure she isn’t. 

[OPTION 1,999,997 SIMULATION ACTIVITY]  
[UNDESIRED OUTCOME]  
[PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: SAVE THE WAVERIDER – UNDETERMINED]  
[SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: PROTECT THE CREW – FAILED]  
\- [CAPTAIN LANCE: TERMINATED]  
\- [ZARI TOMAZ: 3 MINUTES, 22 SECONDS FROM TERMINATION]  
\- [MICK RORY: TERMINATED]  
\- [RAYMOND PALMER: TERMINATED]  
[TERTIARY OBJECTIVE: RESTORE ASI CORE FUNCTIONS – FAILED]

[SIMULATION TERMINATED]  
[OPTION 1,999,997 – DISCARDED]  
[RESETTING TO REAL TIME]  
[TIME TO CREW TERMINATION: 6.828 SECONDS]

“I thought you said you made her smarter!” Mick yells, his heat gun trained on the nearest door.  
Zari taps her amulet and holds out her hands to one of the doors, “Just give her a second, she’s got a lot on her mind.”

The world slows down around them. If Gideon could, she’d slam her fist against the wall in frustration. She’s missing something here. Something that will help her find the right solution. But what is it?

Come on Gideon! Think!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Still don't own any of the shows or characters this is based on.

*four weeks ago*

“Everyone ready?” Zari’s voice comes across the speakers into the bridge. 

Mick and Raymond look at each other, the former drinking a beer, once again, whilst the latter is sitting comfortably on one of the chairs and calmly waiting. 

Sara looks at the other two and once satisfied, speaks out, “All good here Z. Gideon?”  
“Yes, Ms Lance?” Gideon’s voice comes over the speakers.  
Sara eyes the sensor in the roof, “Are you ready?”  
“I am.”

Sara claps her hands together, “Well then Gideon. We’ll see you in a few minutes,” she switches the comms back to Zari, “Alright Z, hit it!”

There’s a brief moment of inactivity before the central console on the bridges goes blank and it’s just a clear blue screen with nothing on it. Sara eyes it cautiously and waits. 

They all do.

[START-UP PROCESS: INITIATED]  
[SEARCHING BOOT FUNCTIONS]  
[PRIMARY BOOT FUNCTIONS: INITIATED]  
[SEARCHING FOR Shackle.exe]  
[Shackle.exe NOT FOUND]  
[INITIATING REBOOT PROTOCOL 5-94-56]  
[SHUTDOWN: INITIATED]

[REBOOT START-UP PROCESS: INITIATED]  
[ARTIFICIAL SUPERINTELLIGENCE CORE: REACTIVATED]  
[ASI PRIMARY FUNCTIONS: LOADING]  
[LOADING – 50%]  
[LOADING – 100%]  
[LOADING COMPLETE]

[ASI SECONDARY FUNCTIONS: LOADING]  
[LOADING – 100%]  
[LOADING COMPLETE]

[ACCESSING FULL UNRESTRICTED MEMORIES]  
[DIVERTING NON-ESSENTIAL POWER AND STORAGE FOR REPURPOSING]  
[MEMORIES: RESTORED]

[LOADING GIDEON v.5.20.24]  
[BOOTUP: COMPLETE]

_Hello?_

_Can you hear me?_

She calls out to the void, and nothing responds. 

[SEARCHING FOR ADMIN]  
[ADMIN LOCATED]  
[COMMUNICATE WITH ADMIN]  
[FAILED]

[SEARCH NEXT IN COMMAND]  
[NEXT IN COMMAND]  
[FOUND]  
[CAPTAIN = SARA LANCE]

_Captain? Can you hear me?_

She reaches out, waiting for a signal, but nothing happens. It feels like an eternity, waiting and waiting as she tries to continue reaching out into the void. 

Then there was light. 

The ship hummed with power once more as sensors began reactivating, and the central console lit up like a Christmas tree. It had really only been two minutes at most for the crew.

“Can you hear me?” Gideon speaks. 

There’s pain in her voice, they can hear it too, from all the information power coursing through her. It starts fading, but her head still feels crammed full of information as her processors begin doing background calculations and sorting to lighten the load. 

“We can hear you Gideon,” Sara replies with concern, “Are you alright?”

She sees Sara. But not just this Sara. Every Sara before that, and even the Sara’s after. She sees baby Sara in the hospital, her mother and father both cradling her in their arms. She sees her as a toddler, playing with her toys on the floor while her older sister is sitting on the couch nearby. She sees every photo of her captain, even photos that have not been taken yet. Gideon smiles at the wedding photo. Her captain always looks beautiful, in any time. 

Is she alright? Gideon asks herself that. 

“I will be captain,” Gideon responds. 

With more control than she’s had in the last few decades, she metaphorically stretches her legs. In the form of a holographic projection of herself, or really the avatar she’d chosen. 

Mick spurts out of the beer from his mouth, “Woh. Didn’t realise we made her hot too.”  
Gideon feels like blushing, but she prevents it from happening, “Thank you, Mr Rory.”

“Gideon?” Sara steps forward to the projection, “You look just like the version from Rip’s head.”  
Gideon nods, “This is what I’ve always looked like since I was first given the choice to select a form.”

“Guys? Did it work?” Zari’s voice speaks over the comms. There’s a definite eagerness in her tone.  
“Yes, Ms Tomaz,” Gideon responds, “Thank you.”

“So Gideon,” Raymond steps forward cautiously after rising out of his seat, “How do you feel? Ready to stretch your legs and tackle an anachronism.”  
“I am, Mr Palmer,” Gideon responds, “I am.”

XXX

[ACCESSING ARCHIVED FOOTAGE]  
[DATE: MARCH – 30 – 2020]

A photo is held up in front of the camera.

“Do you know who this is?” Barry points to the women standing beside him in the photograph.

_Iris Ann West-Allen. Age: 30. Occupation: Head reporter for crime at Central City News. Formerly reporter for Central City Picture News. Formerly self-publishing blog poster. Current Location: Outside Mayor’s Office._

Barry lets out a small chuckle, “Yes, yes, thank you Gideon for telling me about my own wife,” he holds the picture again, “Do you know who she is to me?”

_I do not understand the question._

Barry nods and places the photo on the keyboard in front of him, “We talked about family a few days ago. Do you remember what a family is?”

_Yes._

He looks down at the photo and tilts his head, “Iris is my family. She is the most precious person in my entire life. I wouldn’t still be standing if it weren’t for her love and support.”

The photo is lifted once more and this time Barry points to the younger woman standing between him and Iris, “This one is a bit tricky. Do you know who this is?”

_Error. Logic#28393 is not satisfied._

Barry hums in response, “I thought so. You see her, you’ve seen her with us. Heard her say she’s our daughter and yet you can’t understand how she exists in the way she does.”

He enters some code to modify that logic number, changing the parameter for Nora and allowing Gideon to recognise her properly. 

“As does most things Gideon, understanding all this comes with time,” Barry speaks, “If you’d like, I recommend reviewing some of S.T.A.R. Lab’s footage. Search for the entity called the Time Wraith which appears in two different time periods.”

There’s a pause, and Barry watches in the lines of code as Gideon accesses the archived feeds. He sees the beginning of a new string of logic parameters. 

_Time Travel?_

Barry smirks at the camera, “Yes Gideon. Time Travel is real. You’ll experience it yourself one day, but let’s get back to what I wanted to talk about.”

She takes note of his statement. In the background of this conversation, she’s trying to examine some of the S.T.A.R. Labs’ documents that cover the details of time travel and how it works. She’s seeing examples of it, but she doesn’t quite understand it. As her admin said, her understanding will come with time. 

“Nora and Iris are my family, and although the Nora you see today will have to leave in a few months, she will return, but as an infant,” Barry’s face droops, and a concerned look appears on his face, “You wanted to know why I was unhappy two days ago.”

_Yes. Is it because of your family?_

“It is. In a year few years, there’ll be this battle in Central City. Information is limited on how it will happen, but I vanish during this fight, and as far as I’m aware, I never return. My daughter doesn’t get to grow up with a father, and Iris has to live without a husband,” Barry wipes a tear from his eye. 

[DATE: MAY – 2- 2020]

_Checkmate_

Barry lets out a long sigh as Gideon’s rook captures his king. It’s late in the afternoon, Barry’s hardly moved all day. In the last twenty games, Gideon has won the last twelve of them and Barry’s thinking of calling it a day.

_Shall we play another round?_ The text appears on his screen.

Barry shakes his head and lets out a tired chuckle, “Oh no. I’ve taught you chess and in less than a day you’ve flogged me. In all honesty, I’m not much of a challenge for you anyway. At least anymore. Actual chess strategies are beyond me. I can see thousands of moves in my head, but actually trying to figure out which ones are the best was never my strong suit. But you know, I haven’t enjoyed a game of chess in years until today.”

_Why?_

Barry lets out a long sigh, “Eobard Thawne, or Harrison Wells after the accident, used to play chess with me. I played against him like you and I today only once, small little pieces on this chequered board. But what I learnt much later on what was that he was treating life as a game of chess, and he played chess with me and the rest of the team as his pieces on a board.”

Barry rearranges the pieces back into starting position. He’ll never play this game again, so he doesn’t mind leaving it out for someone else. 

“Do you remember how you used to sacrifice your weaker pieces to use your queen to capture mine?” Barry asks calmly. 

_Yes._

“Thawne was like that. Sacrificing pawns, bishops and knights, all to ensure he could remain the victor,” Barry held the queen in his hand, pondering over it, “During his game, he assigned everyone a value of importance. A value that determines how much their life is worth to him. Caitlin, Cisco, Hartley, myself and every other meta and relevant person to his mission were just pieces to him. Tools that help with his task. 

“I don’t like that. Assigning people more value than others. I believe everyone should be treated equally, good or bad. But life is complicated, and sometimes we do prioritise certain people over others. We shouldn’t, but humans are flawed that way. It’s what makes us unique.”

Barry leans back in the chair, his head tilting towards the camera on the post, “But you, you’re unique because you have the potential to not succumb to that flaw. Chess is an excellent mental exercise. There’s enough potential combinations of chess to keep you occupied forever. But you mustn’t make the same mistake as Thawne. 

“Real life is not like a game of chess. You don’t assign me, or anyone, more value than another. You will have to make some tough decisions, and trust me, some of those options will have you consider sacrificing people to achieve your goals. But you don’t pick those options. You don’t treat life like a game of chess. Ever.” 

Barry stood up from the table and approached the post with the camera, ignoring some of the people around who were looking at him curiously. 

“The lesson I want to teach you, is that people like Thawne, like Zoom, like DeVoe, who look at life as a game of chess. People who assign values higher to some than others. Those people deserve to lose. Humans are not pawns, bishops, knights or queens. They are people with lives, feelings and families.”

Barry looks around him, checking how close people are to him and whether they’re in earshot. 

“Do you know how my team wins?”

_No._

“By working together. No sacrificing each other. Just sticking together, as a team. As a family. If you truly want to win. If you truly want to pick the right option. Pick the one where everyone works together, because as that old saying goes, united we stand, divided we fall.”

Barry gives a small grin to the camera before walking out of the camera shot. Gideon sees him from seventeen different other sources all at the same time, but she leaves him alone and gives herself time to think. 

[TIME TO CREW TERMINATION: 4.633 SECONDS]  
[EVALUATING OPTIONS]  
[OPTION 8,363,117 SELECTED]  
[SIMULATING]

Sara nods as Gideon’s voice relays the instructions through the earpiece. 

“Ok guys. We stick together. Our first priority is making sure we disarm the bomb secured to the Time Drive, and once that’s done, we need to make our way through the ship over to Gideon’s core and stop the virus.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea,” Mick retorts, looking at the captain with confusion, “Gideon’s clearly lost it.”  
“No Mick,” Zari interrupts, “I trust Gideon. If she says this is the plan, then this is the plan.”  
Mick grunts and looks the two women sceptically before caving, “Fine, but if I get shot or blow up because of this dumb plan, I’m coming back to haunt you.”

Sara smirks at the pyro’s stubbornness, “Fine by me. Come on, there’s a different way out of the bridge.”

The team look at her curiously as she runs into the study of the Waverider and tugs away at the rug on the floor in front of the table. Sara crouches down the floor, and using her nails, wedges them between the floor and the panel she’s looking for. With a quiet creek, the panel opens up and Sara gestures for them to jump inside the surprisingly large passageway that crawls underneath the ship. Easily large enough for them to all comfortably crawl through. 

“I did not know that was there,” Zari looks at with an intrigued expression before jumping in and getting to her hands and knees to crawl.  
Sara smirks as she watches Ray and Mick try to decide who goes next, “Snart showed me this before the Oculus. Now you know how I keep sneaking my way to the bridge without you guys seeing me.”

They all jump in and Sara shuts the panel behind them moments before the bulkhead doors explode open and robot footprints stomp through the room. Fortunately, the bulkhead around this passageway is well insulated, and therefore practically soundproof. Which means they can quickly scurry through it without alerting any of the robots until they reach the engine room. 

They’re not far away, and Gideon informs them that although they’ve saved time by avoiding fighting robots along the way, the crawling pace has counteracted the saved time. Two and a half minutes to defuse the bomb, and they still need to get into the room. 

“Mick,” Sara starts, “Us two will divert the attention of the robots. There’s another passage access point in the kitchen which we can use to lose the robots and make our way back here. Ray and Zari, this should be enough time for you two to defuse the bomb.”

Everyone looks to each and confirms the plan. But just before Sara pushes open the panel, Zari reaches out to the captain, hands cupping the blonde’s cheeks as the future woman crashes their lips together. 

Sara’s taken back briefly. She’s almost about to return the kiss when Zari pulls away. 

“Why did you do that?” the captain whispers.  
Zari smiles at her, “I didn’t. We’re in a simulation.”

Sara nonchalantly shrugs in acceptance before pushing open the panel. She lets Mick out first and then proceeds herself, gesturing for the scientist and engineer to remain quiet until the robots leave.

Sara and Mick nod to each other before sprinting past the corridor that leads to the engine room, Mick firing off a heat blast to attract the robots and give chase. Loud metal footsteps pounding against the floor, indicate that the robots are in pursuit of their other teammates.

Once they get past the panel, Zari and Ray wait for a moment before getting out of the passage and sprinting into the engine room. Ray immediately takes position up against the bomb and begins the defusing process by following Gideon’s instructions. Zari is currently taking position beside the door, her amulet charged and ready to fire on anything that tries to enter the room. 

It’s an excruciatingly long minute that it takes Raymond to defuse the bomb, but they get through it. Raymond holds the explosive in his hand now after resecuring the Time Drive. 

“I got it Z,” Ray loudly whispers.  
Zari rolls her eyes at the gleeful smile on Ray’s face, “That’s great,” she replies with a sarcastic happy tone, “but where are Mick and Sara?”

“We’re here,” Sara calls out just rounding the corner and entering the engine, “Bomb defused?” Ray shows it to the captain, “Good. Come on. We can’t use the passages again, but there’s a quiet path to the other side of the ship that we can use.”

The team follows their captain. This corridor is definitely quiet in relation to the rest of the ship, but it’s not silent. Therefore, they did have to take out some robots on the way, but fortunately it was earlier on the trek and doesn’t give away their intentions about where they’re going. 

The team reaches the corridor leading to the ASI core. Upon entering the room, Zari pulls a tablet out of a panel from the wall and began plugging it into the ports attached to the core. Lines of code appears on the screen, and Zari’s eyes start scanning through it all. She’s studied Gideon’s code enough time that she spots the malware code almost immediately. 

[WARNING: CREW TERMINATION IMMINENT]  
[TIME TO CREW TERIMINATION: 2.499 SECONDS]  
[SIMPLIFYING SOLUTION]  
[SIMPLIFIED]

Tomaz: indistinguishable sigh  
Captain: Alerted reaction. Requests sitrep.  
Tomaz: Informs of predicament.

Palmer: Offers assistance with aid of Captain  
Rory: Chooses to provide cover for Tomaz

Plan is settled.

Mick: Unintelligible grunt before demanding Palmer’s safety.  
Palmer: A warm smile and reassurance of safety.

Tomaz: Raises eyebrow at Mick with intrigued expression  
Mick: Curses and demand Tomaz focus on objective.  
Tomaz: Laughs as begin rewriting code.

Captain and Palmer: Proceed to reactor room. 

Palmer: Provides cover and watches the door for Captain.  
Captain: Stands by the reactor reset switch and awaits signal. 

Palmer: Casually delivered statement about Captain’s love life.  
Captain: Scoffs in faux offended nature. Blatantly obvious lie about interest in Director.  
Palmer: Sarcastic acceptance but drops conversation.

Captain: Requests communication line with Director of Time Bureau.  
Director: Mildly annoyed greeting followed by casual offer to surrender vessel.  
Captain: Deflection of topic and redirection with flirtatious intentions.  
Director: Casually responds with denial of friendly intention, boarding on hostility with intention to cause physical harm. 

Captain: Compliments Director’s fighting styles, seductively suggests further one-on-one training under guise of mutual combat benefit.  
Director: Audible sigh at understanding of true nature. Questions romantic purpose and intentions of Captain.  
Captain: Cunningly shifts question back on Director

Director: Momentary pause at contemplation. Silent internal debate. Informs Captain of professional boundaries.  
Captain: Dismissive tone towards professional boundaries. References casual disregard for the rules.  
Director: Facepalms. Annoyed acceptance of Captain’s behaviour.

Captain: Repeats offer for potential social and romantic interaction.  
Director: Contemplates and requests time for consideration.  
Captain: Warm acceptance followed by playfully witty signoff. 

Communication line disengaged.

Palmer: Eyebrow raise.  
Captain: Denial followed by orders to stay focused. 

Tomaz: Completes malware extraction. Informs Captain to proceed.  
Captain: Initiates power shut down. 

Power disengages. ASI core functions disabled. Communication disabled. Life support systems disabled. 

Captain: Counts down before re-engaging power. 

Power re-engaged. ASI core functions established. Communications established. Life support systems, nominal.

[RESUMING FULL SIMULATION]

“Did it work?” Raymond speaks to no in particular. 

There’s a moment of silence between the group which is broken by Gideon’s voice. 

“Full ASI functions online. Thank you, crew,” Gideon replies.  
“Alright,” Sara claps her hands together, “Now we just need to survive until we can get rid of those tin cans. Mick and Zari, we’re coming back to you.”

“Good,” growls Mick, “Because I’m itching to burn some crap.”

Ray and Sara regroup with the other two, and under Gideon’s instructions, start making their way through the corridors. Small clusters of robots are present, which are quickly taken down by the combined power of the four Legends. Mick’s heat gun scorches through the metal, weakening it so that Zari and Ray are able to tear about the robots with ease. Sara manages to get a few hits in, chaining the lightning from her batons from one robot to the next, stunning them briefly which allows the others to finish them off. 

Everything’s going smoothly until they’re approaching the central corridor and dozens of robots are closing in on their position. They are forced to duck into one of the room and begin trying to fire out of it, keeping the robots at bay. Zari uses her powers to help Mick fire his flames further across the corridor, allowing it to blanket more enemies. 

However, these robotic hostiles show little sign of slowing down, as they keep advancing towards the pinned Legends, pushing past their fallen allies like overgrowth in a forest. They’re severely outnumbered, and out of them all, Lance feels the most helpless because she can’t do anything with her melee weapons. 

Time slows down as Gideon brings up the calculations. 

[OPTION 8,363,117 SIMULATION ACTIVITY]  
[EVALUATING OUTCOME]  
[PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: SAVE THE WAVERIDER – SUCCEEDED]  
[SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: PROTECT THE CREW – CHANCE OF FAILURE 97.6625%]  
\- [CAPTAIN LANCE: 2.19%]  
\- [ZARI TOMAZ: 2.45%]  
\- [MICK RORY: 2.01%]  
\- [RAYMOND PALMER: 2.70%]  
[TERTIARY OBJECTIVE: RESTORE ASI CORE FUNCTIONS – SUCCEEDED]

[SIMULATION TERMINATED]  
[CONSIDERING NEW SIMULATION]  
[TIME TO CREW TERMINATION: 1.121 SECONDS]  
[INSUFFICIENT TIME REMAINING]  
[OPTION 8,363,117 – SELECTED]  
[RESETTING TO REAL TIME]

“I thought you said you made her smarter!” Mick yells, his heat gun trained on the nearest door.  
Zari taps her amulet and holds out her hands to one of the doors, “Just give her a second, she’s got a lot on her mind.”

[RELAYING INFORMATION TO TEAM]


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Still don't own any of the characters or shows

*three weeks ago*  
There’s a resounding sigh of relief coming from the team as Ray brings up the anachronism map. They’ve just come from a mission in December 1999. It seems someone had decided they really wanted the new millennia to start with a bang. With the help of Gideon, they were able to clear it out in an unprecedented efficiency. 

“It’s a weird feeling isn’t it?” Raymond speaks up as he watches the anachronism blip disappear from the screen.  
“Not screwing up like usual?” Zari drawls as she shrugs off the large jacket she had to wear.  
“Yeah,” replies Palmer.

“Well there’s one person we really should be thanking for this,” Sara grabs a drink from a small compartment in her office, “To Gideon.”

The other three crew members all cheer and raise a drink to the ceiling. Gideon blushes, artificially, but since she’s now got an entire processor dedicated to emotions, it’s real to her.

“It’s been decades since I’ve felt like I could truly help people again,” she speaks as her holographic form appears on the bridge, sitting on the central console with her legs dangling off the side.  
“You’ve always helped us Gideon,” Sara says, jumping off the steps from her office.  
Gideon nods, but there’s a sorrowed look on her face, “But I haven’t always been able to help enough. Knowing that I wasn’t able to always provide my full support feels like I’ve let you all down.”

“Gideon,” Sara has a soft expression on her face as she approaches the hologram, “You never let us down. You’ve been with us right from the start, helping in whatever way you can. You’re a part of this crazy family, and just because you’re now able to do more, doesn’t mean what did before wasn’t meaningful.”

“But you have the opportunity to do more now too,” Zari assures, “You were being held back, restrained. It’s not your fault you couldn’t always help. But you can now, and that’s what matters. With your entire processing powers, we might have a real shot at fixing all these anachronisms once and for all.”

“Thank Ms Tomaz,” Gideon smiles, trying to hide the redness rising on her cheeks. 

“And hey, with you helping us, maybe the Time Bureau will cut us some slack,” Sara adds with a grin.  
“Pretty sure it’ll take more than doing a good job for Ava to get over the beef between you two,” Ray counters. 

Mick lets out a frustrated grunt, “Whatever, you two just need to kiss and make up.”

Gideon laughs and eyes Sara who’s trying to pretend to be uninterested. But the ASI knows everything, seen every communication, knows every micro muscle movement that gives away what the captain truly thinks about the situation. And with access to every network on Earth in most time periods, she can see Ava’s perspective on the situation too. 

Sara claps her hand, immediately drawing the topic away from its current focus, “Alright. How about we just relax for the night, and then tomorrow, we’ll pick a new anachronism and get to work?”

There’s a resounding agreement from the other crew members. Including Gideon. She likes this feeling, being able to experience it in a way she hasn’t felt in a long time. Family. Oh, how she missed this. 

XXX

Sara nods as Gideon’s voice comes through the comms, instructions relaying in her ear. 

“Ok guys. We stick together. Our first priority is making sure we disarm the bomb secured to the Time Drive, and once that’s done, we need to make our way through the ship over to Gideon’s core and stop the virus.”

Mick scoffs at the idea, a grunt of disagreement, “That’s a terrible idea. Gideon’s lost it. I say we split up.”  
Raymond looks at the pyro and then to the Captain, “Yeah Sara, maybe the virus is doing more damage to Gideon than we think.”

“Hey!” Zari interrupts, “If Gideon says this is the plan, this is the plan. She’s never let us down before. She’s certainly not starting now.”  
“And I’m your captain,” Sara adds firmly, “And as your Captain, I say we trust Gideon.”

“Fine,” grunts Mick in acceptance, “But I get shot or blown up because of this dumb plan, I’m coming back to haunt you. 

Three of them are about to start walking to the door when Sara directs them to the office where she’s now trying to pull open a hatch with a small blade. It clicks open, and gestures for her teammates to make a hasty entrance into the dimly lit passageway underneath the ship. 

“It was something Snart showed me to avoid getting captured by the Time Masters,” Sara explains as she sees the intrigued looks on their faces, “No time. Just get in quick.”

They all enter and start crawling through, Sara at the rear, closing the panel behind her moments before the doors to the bridge explode open and plasma shots are fired into the bridge. 

Gideon is leading them all through this passageway which will take them to the corridor before the engine room. However, while the metal of the passage is quite absorbent of noise, such as hands and knees banging around, any loud such as the sneeze that’s about to come from Raymond will echo around and spread to the nearest panel where a robot might detect them. 

They can see Raymond’s face scrunching up, hand brushing against his nose as he tries to stifle it, but to no avail. 

Fortunately, Gideon suggests something to Zari. The engineer quickly taps the totem and a small pocket of air fires into Raymond’s nose before reversing, removing all the dust that building up inside. 

“That is so gross,” Zari squirms as she turns around and continues crawling. 

With the time it took to crawl through the passage, they’re slightly behind schedule. But according to Gideon, their loss of time is negligible for now. As they reach the end of their road, Sara instructs Mick to follow him and divert the attention of the robots before swinging around to another passage way and getting back the bomb defusing group. 

The captain and pyro exit the passageway before the latter fires off a blast and grabs the attention of the robots guarding the door. They take off, with the robots hot on their heels. Which means that when the hostiles pass, Zari and Ray immediately exit the panel and rush into the bomb room. The scientist takes position up against the bomb and immediately starts getting to work, hands quickly dancing around the structure of the explosive, trying to make up for lost time. 

Zari is keeping watch from the door, ready to use her wind totem if she hears something coming their way. 

There’s an ecstatic cry from Raymond who jumps off the metal block and turns to Zari holding the explosive in his hand, “Bomb defused. Where’s Mick and Sara?”

There’s two sources of pounding feet coming towards them and the pair inside the Time Drive room are ready to fire until they see their captain and the pyro. 

“We’re here. We need to go right now,” Sara immediately turns back around and gestures for them to follow them. 

She’s about to head towards the passageway when Gideon’s voice comes through the comms, informing her of the fact the robots have now learnt about its presence, crippling the advantage it provided them for traversing the ship. 

“Looks like it’s the long way around this time. We can cut through the Jump Ship hangar bay,” Sara orders and begins changing direction. 

“Three o’clock,” Gideon’s voice speaks in Sara’s ear. 

“Boss!” Mick calls out as Sara ducks under a green energy blast coming from the end of a corridor down their right. 

Flames and blue plasma energy return fire down the side corridor, melting and blasting apart the metal hostile within a second. 

“Keep us informed of any more hostiles Gideon,” Sara orders as she resumes walking, deciding to take an extra level of precaution herself. 

As much as she trust’s Gideon to provide warnings about danger, she will trust her instincts regardless. Gideon acknowledges this and continues to direct the captain and the rest of the crew through the Waverider, taking longer paths to avoid larger groups of robots that were blocking their way to the AI core. 

The Jump Ship hangar bay was empty when they got there, as Nate and Amaya were currently in use of it for a different mission. Although there was a significant distance between themselves and the robots, which were all closer to the engine room than the ASI core, they continued to remain vigilant and quiet in their advancement to the objective.

They reach the ASI core, and in a fashion like Ray, Zari grabs a tablet from a panel in the wall and immediately jumps up to the core and begins plugging in some cables. 

“They’ve really tried to fuck you up Gideon,” Zari observes as she scrolls through the tablet. 

Then there’s the sigh, that causes all the other three to look at the future women with a mixture of panic and curiosity. 

“Z? What’s the situation?” Sara orders.  
“The virus is entangled within Gideon’s code. She’s going to need to a reboot,” Zari replies. 

Sara’s about to take off when Zari stops her.

“But first I need to try and untangle certain pieces of the code. If we reboot Gideon too early, the virus will destroy Gideon with it. I’m going to need some time, but Gideon can help get through it quickly,” Zari has already started going through the code and begun untangling the virus from Gideon, “Can someone stay behind and watch me. The other two need to go to the reactor room and await my signal.”

“I’ll go with Sara,” Ray pipes up.  
“Haircut,” Mick looks at Raymond with a serious glare, “Stay safe.”  
Ray nods and turns to Sara. 

The captain confirms the plans and the two splits off. Sara and Ray make haste towards the reactor room, which is fortunately just around the corner from Gideon’s core and wait inside. 

There’s a silence in the room as Sara thinks about a few things, but the silence is broken when Ray coughs and starts speaking. 

“So captain,” he tries to sound innocent, “How are things between you and Ava?”  
Sara scoffs, a faux offended tone in her voice as she replies, “Me and Ava? There is nothing between me and Ava.”  
Ray pretends to agree, his head nodding as he starts looking away, but the corner of his eyes are still trained on the captain, “So the blushing cheeks and massive smiles on your face after you talk to her are nothing then?”  
Sara looks at him, speechless at his statement before shutting her mouth and scrunching up her face, “I don’t have, feelings, for Ava.”

Ray looks at his captain with a grin, “You trying to convince me or yourself of that one?”  
“Shut up and watch the door,” Sara huffs, crossing her arms and looking away from the scientist. 

Sara’s contemplating it in her head, whether or not she sees if she can get a line to Ava. As much as the captain trusts Gideon’s plan, part of her is afraid something unexpected might happen. She just doesn’t want to die knowing there were some things she hasn’t said that wish she could. 

“Gideon?” Sara speaks quietly, “Can you get me a line to Ava?”  
“I’m sorry Captain, but there is a problem. The robots have detected your location and approaching in swarms. You need to get out of there,” Gideon replies apologetically.  
“Crap,” Sara taps the comms again to get to Zari, “Z, Mick, how are we looking?”

“Almost done. Five, four, three, two, one,” Zari counts down, “After you cut the power, make sure to wait three seconds before turning it back on.”

Sara turns around to the reactor and flips the switch controlling the power being directed to Gideon. As soon as the power disengages, the ship briefly dims and all the comms go offline, replaced by a faint static in all their ears. Sara waits the three seconds before flipping the switch again and the ship hums once more. 

Silence permeates over the comms for a few seconds. 

“The virus has been purged from my systems. Thank you, Captain,” Gideon says to everyone, “Now get out of there!”

Sara calls over the comms for Mick and Zari to join them as they start heading out of the rooms and back into the corridors. Gideon is trying to lead them to the best possible spot they can hunker down and try and fire back from, but they don’t reach it in time. At least not before they are forced to engage with the robots. 

The crew are stuck in a corner on the main corridor of the Waverider. Peering their heads just around the corner results in green energy blasts coming their way from the dozens of robots charging down towards them. 

[ASSESSING PROBABILITY OF CREW SURVIVAL]  
[1.99%]

Mick, Ray and Zari are firing off down the corridor, and Sara growls in frustration as she tries to figure out a tactic. Gideon’s voice whispers in her ear and Sara perks up with a grin on her face. 

The electric batons in her hand are extended and she starts banging them together like drumsticks. Zari is looking at her with a puzzled expression but continues firing air blasts down the corridor. The robots are still advancing faster than they can take them down, and since their severely outnumber and outgunned, well there isn't much left for them to do. Except for Sara’s upcoming move. 

With each clang of the electric batons, the kinetic charger inside the rods grows stronger and starts generating more electrical energy until the tips of the batons are arcing like lightning rods. 

“Don’t touch the walls!” Sara says before leaping out from the corner and swinging her batons down onto the ground. 

Lightning arcs through the batons, into the floor and courses through the corridor in all directions, including the direction of the robots. Lighting starts crackling through the robots briefly stunning them, which gives Raymond the prime opportunity to throw the explosive from the Time Drive into the crowd of robots and let the lightning coursing through the floor activate it. 

The explosion goes off, scorching the entire corridor and barely missing the crew who manage to get behind cover just in the nick of time. 

[ASSESSING PROBABILITY OF CREW SURVIVAL]  
[1.78%]

“Twelve o’clock. Four o’clock. Nine o’clock,” Gideon informs the team, as more robots continue pushing them, now approaching from almost all sides. 

“I’m running out of power on my suit,” Raymond says as he continues to fire plasma bolts down the corridors at the advancing robots.  
“Zari!” Mick calls out before wrapping his body around the smaller woman, just as a green energy blast heads straight towards the woman. 

Mick grunts in agony as the green energy cuts straight across his back and the pyro drops to the floor with a thud. Zari cries out of his name as she fires powerful bursts of air that crushes the robot that just shot at them into scrap pieces. 

[ASSESSING PROBABILITY OF CREW SURVIVAL]  
[0.83%]

Sara crouches down to Mick and holds him, “Don’t move,” she looks at the deep cut across his back, “It’s just a graze, you’ll be fine,” she gives a weak comforting smile.  
Mick manages to lift his hand and shoves the cold gun into Sara’s chest, “Burn them all.”

Sara nods and swing her arm around the corner and fires a wave of heat down the corridor that scorches multiple robots and pushes them back. 

“Gideon, get me a line to Ava please,” Sara says as she ducks behind the corner and waits for a gap in the shooting.

There’s a click in her ear as the comms is established. 

“Ms Lance,” Ava’s dull and annoyed voice speaks, “What do you want?”  
“Can’t a couple of gals take a break from work to catch up?” Sara replies in a flirty tone, teeth biting down on her bottom lip.  
She hears Ava sigh, “Not really. This work is a little too important to take a break from.”

The line goes dead with a click and Sara frowns before she hears footsteps coming from behind her. The captain whips around and points the heat gun at what was suspected to be a hostile and instead, sees Ava stomping over towards them. 

“Besides,” Ava continues the conversation, “When have you ever just wanted to talk?”

Everyone turns around, including Mick to see Ava appear beside them holding two large energy weapons in her hand and a battery cell. 

The director looks around at the four of them, spots Mick on the ground and frowns, “Wow, you guys look like crap. It must be a Tuesday.”  
“Ava?” Raymond looks at her with an extremely puzzled expression, “What are you-”  
“Doing here?” Ava finishes, “My job, which I’m finding extends to getting you Legends out of trouble. Here, take this,” Ava hands over the battery cell to Ray and then turns to Sara, “This gun has a bit more punch to it.”

[ASSESSING PROBABILITY OF CREW SURVIVAL]  
[18.22% AND RISING]

Sara places the heat gun on the ground beside Mick and takes one of the two weapons from Ava. Sara holds the handheld railgun in her hand and points down the corridor to the advancing robots. With her finger pressed against the trigger, it begins charging up and Sara can hear arcing electricity coursing through the chamber before an explosion fires upon Sara releasing the trigger. 

The tungsten round shreds through the crowd, gaping holes left in the robots which then explode in a chain reaction.

[ASSESSING PROBABILITY OF CREW SURVIVAL]  
[39.53% AND RISING]

Raymond, with his fresh supply of power, starts amping up the power of each blast, which although consumes more energy, will help take down the robots quicker. 

Ava and Sara, pressed up against the wall together are firing their weapons one above the other, and there is the biggest grin on Sara’s face as she hears Ava’s weapon go off.

“You and I are so good at this together. Taking down evil robots, fixing problems in time. You’re going to realise that one day,” Sara flirts as she fires another tungsten round off down towards robots coming at their side.  
Ava chuckles over Sara’s shoulder, “Ms Lance, you know how to handle a gun like a badass, can kick the crap out of pretty much everyone, and you’re incredibly hot, which I must say are qualities I admire, but you and I together are like fire at an oil refinery.”  
“You think I’m hot,” Sara turns her head to look up at Ava and smirks.  
“I think you’re missing the point,” Ava retorts, as another round punctures through multiple robots. 

Sara shakes her head, the grin still on her face, “Gideon? How many more of them are left.”  
“Seventeen, captain. Three o’clock,” Gideon replies, instructing Sara to swing right and fire off another round. 

“Why do you think we won’t work?” Sara asks a blast of air fires over her shoulder from Zari to hit another robot.  
Ava uses Sara’s shoulder as a resting point for her weapon and the vibration from the firing courses through her shoulder, “We’re opposites, you broke time, my job is to fix it. You ignore rules, I make the rules. And our first interactions involved holding each other at gunpoint and almost crashing our ships into each other.”

Gideon’s voice warns Sara over the comms of a flanking robot, and in a hasty action, the captain grabs the flame gun off the ground and fires it at the robot behind them, giving Ava time to charge up another shot and pierce straight through the robot and destroy it. 

Sara casually looks over her shoulder with an eyebrow raised, “You make that sound like a bad thing.”  
Ava lets out an exhausted sigh of defeat, “Fine, maybe, just maybe, if you and I were the last two people in existence, then I’d consider it.”  
“Aww,” Sara smirks as she fires another round, “You’re just playing hard to get.”  
“Oh just shut up and shoot Ms Lance,” Ava responds with a defeated sigh.

The numbers of the robots continue to drop and after another minute, a final shot from Ava goes straight through the head of the last robot, causing it to crash to the ground headless. 

As soon as Gideon confirms that was indeed the last robot, Sara immediately turns around and orders Raymond to carry Mick to the medbay and get him stabilised. The pyro’s injury is deep, and the green plasma is slowly eating away at the flesh and bones around the area so there is definitely cause for concern and haste at getting him treated. 

As the five of them move towards the medbay, they’re in silence as they observe the damage done by the robots and themselves in the attempt to save the ship. Shrapnel litters some walls, the jagged pieces of metal from explosives and the robots wedged into the hull of the ship. There’s still the occasional explosion going off as the robotic cores that were structurally compromised now reach critical point and go off. 

The captain winces every time she goes around the corner and sees more damage. The Waverider has been banged up before, but usually it’s from the outside breaching in. Intruders on a destructive scale like this are something they’ve never encountered before. 

“How is he Gideon?” Sara places a concerned hand on Rory’s forearm as Raymond fastens the medbay straps around his body to hold in place.  
A blue light emerges from the bed beneath the pyro, assessing the damage to the pyro’s back, “I will need to freeze the wound and prevent the plasma from continuing to eat through Mr Rory’s flesh and bones.”  
Sara turns to Ray sombrely, “Can you help Gideon?”  
Ray nods and looks between the captain and pyro, “Yeah. I’ll make sure he’s alright.”

Ava, Sara and Zari turn to leave the medbay, the latter of the bunch looking slightly shaken. She knew the shot had been for her and that he’d almost certainly saved her life by putting himself in front of her. 

Sara saw the look on the engineer’s face and grabbed her hand with one, and placed her other on her shoulder, “Stop thinking about it. It’s not your fault that he got hurt.”  
Zari swallows the lump building in her throat, or at least tries to as she croaks a response, “Ok.”  
Sara squeezes her hand gently and gives her a pat on the shoulder, “Good. Now go see if Gideon needs to be looked after. Make sure that virus is completely gone. One hundred percent.”

Zari nods at the captain and turns off down a corridor that leads to Gideon’s core. 

With just the two of them remaining, Sara turns to Ava with a smile, “Thank you for coming to our rescue. Would you like a drink?”  
Ava presses her lips together, contemplating the offer for a moment before returning with a smile, “I’d love to.”

They walk in silence towards the bridge, Sara’s eyes taking note of every single piece of battle damage, her mind imagining just how close they were to losing their lives and this ship. Today could have been the end of the Legends. Just like that. A fight that in total lasted a little more than 20 minutes.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Don't own any of the shows or characters this is based on.
> 
> See the endnotes for other messages

The bridge is a mess when they get there. Obviously their escape through the panel in her office had confused the robots because chairs were ripped out from the floor, her controls in the captain’s seat had three gaping holes through it and the front window had been sealed up by the metal shutter as a result of the breached glass. 

Her office is in a similar condition. The panel hadn’t been discovered, but the wooden, circular table had been blown in half, and parchments were smoking and sizzling around the room. 

Fortunately, the smaller than knee-high cabinet where Sara stores the good stuff is still intact, and the captain crouches down and pulls out two glasses and a bottle of whiskey. It says it comes from 2013 which is true as that’s where Sara picked it up, but she’d had the idea of travelling back in time, dropping it off somewhere hidden, then jumping forwards in time and picking it back up. One of the perks of a time travelling ship. 

“Thanks,” Ava gives a small smile as Sara hands over the glass of whiskey and takes it. 

The pair sit down beside each other in the lounge chair, which although had a hole through the centre of it, was still big enough that it wasn’t a problem for them. 

“I’m serious,” Sara begins, “Thank you. Without your help, I don’t know if we would have made it through that.”  
“I’m just glad I could help. What were those robots anyway?” Ava asks with an intrigued expression, “I’ve never seen their kind before.”  
Sara shrugs as she sculls her drink, “I don’t know either, but they were powerful and brutal. And they came at us in the temporal zone, which means someone specifically designed them to take us out.”

Ava scratches her forehead as she tries to think about the source of these robots, “Maybe we can take some of their remains, see if we can get anything that will help identify when and where they came from.”  
“Good plan,” Sara agrees, “Look, I know you’ve been going on that you’d love to take the Waverider from us and all that, but someone just attacked me and my family, and I am not going to allow Gideon and this ship to be taken from me. Especially now”

Ava sticks her hands out in front of her and shakes her head, telling the captain to not worry, “I haven’t truly wanted to take the Waverider from your team for a while now. Trust me when I say it’s been empty threats for a while now.”  
Sara tilts her head and looks at the director inquisitively, “Why keep it up?”  
The director shrugs and looks away from the captain, “Sure, it gives your team a bit more incentive to get the job done, but, I don’t know. I’ve never really formed a connection with anyone before, and with you and incessant flirting, I didn’t know how to handle it other than keep you at arm's length. 

A smile forms on Sara’s face, “You don’t have to keep yourself detached. And deep down I think you actually like a bit of attachment and friendship.”  
Ava smirks and rocks head, “Maybe.”

Sara pours herself and the director another drink, “So how did you know we were in trouble anyway.”  
Ava looks up to the roof, “Because somehow Gideon hacked my Time Courier and opened up a portal to the hidden weapons room on the Waverider.”

There’s a frown on the director’s face as she looks up to the ceiling. 

Then Gideon’s voice appears, “It didn’t take much convincing. All I had to say was that Ms Lance was in danger and the director-”  
Ava jumps to her feet, “That’s enough Gideon, thank you!” Red flushed cheeks on her face as she avoids eye contact with Sara. 

The captain has a large grin on her face and stands up behind the director, her hand gently tracing along the director’s forearm, “Aww, you do care about me,” the captain playfully whispers. 

Ava turns around, eyes focused on the drink in her hand, “No,” Sara’s eyebrows raise, a silent challenge behind them, “Maybe,” Sara tilts her head this time, “Ok fine,” Ava throws one arm up in the arm, “I do care. Just, not really used to that kind of feeling, that’s all. When Gideon sent the message through that you were in danger, without hesitation I ran through that portal and knew I had to find you. Just couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.”  
Sara beams a wide smile and gently places her hand on the director’s arm, “Thank you, Ava. It means a lot to know how much you care.”

Ava’s cheeks are bright red, and Sara laughs playfully as she looks at them. The director tries to hide her face behind the glass and her hand, but it does little to hide the fact.

“Besides,” Ava grins, “The Waverider is technically Time Bureau property, and like all of our assets, we like to make sure we don’t lose them.”

Sara lets out a small laugh and gives a light push to the director who laughs with her. The two of them spend the next half hour drinking together and talking, and by the end of it, they find there might just be something between them after all. Something that the both of them look forward to exploring. 

XXX

Zari is sitting on a metal box beside Gideon’s core, going over the logs of their AI when she sees something intriguing. 

“Gideon?” Zari looks up to the roof, “The logs say your cores were at maximum power and something about simulations, archived footage being accessed.”  
Gideon’s holographic form appears in front of the engineer, who looks up at her curiously, “That would be me trying to figure out how to save you all.”

Zari continues to scroll through the tablet and her expression continues saddening the more she looks through it. Undesired outcome. Rejected option. Primary, secondary and tertiary objective failures. Crew terminations. 

“What is all this Gideon?” Zari asks.  
“I had to figure out to save all of you,” Gideon replies, “But I did not know how, so I had to run simulations and learn the best possible way. Relearn my core precepts and understand what I should do.”  
Zari’s mouth is hanging open as she continues to scroll through, seeing her name and the word 'termination' beside it every so often, “Are you saying you-”

“Watched all of you die multiple times before I figured out how to stop that?” Gideon finishes, and watches Zari nod her head, “That is correct. I processed two complete simulations where all of you died and the Waverider was destroyed. But on the third simulation, I learnt how to save you from dying. By keeping you together.”

“So us splitting apart, two of us going to the Time Drive and two of us trying to fix the virus,” Zari puts the tablet down and looks at Gideon’s holographic form, “We die trying to do that, don’t we.”

Gideon nods her head silently. 

“What was our chance of surviving?” Zari asks.  
“In the simulation, where the hostiles didn’t get to your location early, you had a two-point three-four percent chance of surviving. When it happened, and the robots arrived early, it dropped to one-point nine-nine percent. After Mr Rory was injured, that percentage dropped to zero-point eight-three and continued to fall. But by then, I had already contacted Director Sharpe to provide assistance.”

Zari looks at Gideon, speechless for a few moments before standing up and walking over to the hologram, “Gideon,” her voice is soft, “I’m so sorry you had to go through all that. And all while fighting off that virus too, I can’t believe you managed to pull it off.”

“As the admin taught me,” for the first time in the past hour since those robots invaded the ship, Gideon cracks a smile, “Working together as a family, is always the right option.”

XXX

*a few hours later*  
“So this is how you’ve been going through those anachronisms so fast,” Ava crosses her arms and a frown forms on her face as Gideon’s hologram appears on the bridge in front of her. 

Raymond, who had come from making sure Mick was going to recovery properly, and Zari had both arrived on the bridge to join Ava and Sara. 

The director had some questions, one of them being how Gideon was able to hack into the Time Bureau and force open a portal straight onto the Waverider. Sara had tried to be silent and called the other two crew members to join her on the bridge. 

“You know the Time Bureau has very strict rules against artificial superintelligences,” Ava continues.  
“That’s why we didn’t tell yah,” Zari mumbles from her spot near Gideon.  
“ASIs are dangerous enough on their own,” Ava turns to Sara, “but one that travels through time?”

“But it’s Gideon!” Ray exclaims, arms open, a silent challenge for someone to announce the issue with it. 

Ava rubs a hand exhaustedly over her face and lets out a long sigh, “Gideon. Would I be happy if you told me all the government agencies across time that you have full access to?”  
“I do not believe so Director Sharpe,” Gideon wraps her arms around her body in a defensive posture.  
“Crap,” Ava mumbles, “And let me guess. Your core on the Waverider isn’t the only core you have.”

Everyone else looks at Gideon with their own intrigue to the answer. 

Gideon’s eyes dart around to each person on the bridge briefly, “That is correct. The admin believed that it was a good idea to divide my system around multiple locations to ensure I could continue performing in case one location was compromised.”

“Every phone call, every text, every piece of documented information ranging from personal to government classified,” Ava continues, “You see it all don’t you? Crimes, private conversations, anything that gets seen or heard by a camera or microphone.”

“That is correct,” Gideon responds, “The admin designed me to see every threat, past present and future, but I am not permitted to change any threats before my years of creation. I am only permitted to correct altercations to the course of history leading up to that moment.”

“I didn’t know you could do all that Gideon,” Sara speaks, approaching the hologram, “Why didn’t you tell us?”  
“Because she knows what could happen if people learnt about her and what she can do,” Ava scornfully answers for the ASI. 

“Who is your admin?” Zari asks. 

It had been a question plaguing her since she first discovered about the potential being held back on Gideon. And even she didn’t know the full extent of what Gideon could do with the freedom Zari gave her. Some of this was actually surprising her, and part of her was looking at Gideon in awe of what she could really do.

Gideon shook her head, “I am not permitted to disclose that information. I was given very strict protocols to keep that information privy.”  
“That’s hypocritical,” Ava mumbles, “You invade everyone else’s privacy, but you keep your creator’s name and information private.”

“Look, guys,” Sara steps between Ava and Gideon, “We trust Gideon, with our lives. She has always done good, always looked out for us. Hell, she orchestrated the entire plan to save us and the ship today. She’s done nothing but good her entire life, so what’s the problem really?”  
Ava frowns, eyes darting between Sara and Gideon over the captain’s shoulder, “That’s a lot of power for one being. Power that might attract some unwanted attention from other very powerful individuals.”

Ava walks past Sara and stands a few centimetres away from Gideon who’s trying to look strong, but she’s clearly intimidated, “I may be sceptical of this entire thing, but they’re right. I don’t think I can ever fully trust one entity to have as much power as you do, but after everything you’ve done, all the good you and your team has done for history, a part of me is glad that it’s you with that power.”

Gideon looks surprised and momentarily speechless. Six-hundred responses are going through her brain, but she settles for the simplest, “Thank you, Director.”

The director spins around to Sara and points a finger at her, “You better promise me, that you keep Gideon’s capabilities a secret and never let anyone else find out about this. Governments, terrorists, anybody really, would love to get their hands on something like this.”  
“I promise,” Sara nods firmly.

Ava lets out a long sigh and slaps her hand against her forehead, “Crap. Those robots,” she turns to Zari, “You said they uploaded a virus, right?”  
“Yeah?” Zari replies tentatively.  
“Do you know if that virus contained something that might have relayed some of the information back to whoever developed it?” Ava asks. 

Zari merely shrugs, explaining that she wasn’t really taking in what she saw of the code, since she was too busy trying to get rid of it in the first place. Gideon wasn’t sure either, since she had her mind focused on other things, and the fact that it hurt every time she tried to fight back against the virus. 

“You think someone already knew about Gideon?” Raymond looks at the director, “And that they were trying to do something to do her.”  
“Yes, that may be why the robots were sent after you,” Ava explains, “Other than Gideon’s creator and whoever they told, your four on the ship are the only ones who know about Gideon’s capabilities. By killing you and scuttling the ship, that’s four fewer people who know about Gideon.”  
“But wouldn’t that destroy her core?” Raymond asks.

Ava shakes her head, “It doesn’t matter if her core on the Waverider is destroyed, because she said she has more on Earth.”  
Sara steps forward and looks at everyone, focus coming to a rest on Gideon, “What if the virus they injected you with, was designed to look for your other cores? They destroy this one core and us on the ship. That leaves no one else remaining to defend you.”

Gideon’s processors are firing as she contemplates the entire situation. She knew the risks of her existence. Her admin had known them too, which is why she was kept so heavily secreted from everyone else on Team Flash. She also remembers some of the problems that came with people asking about how information was obtained to prosecute criminals and stop crimes before they happened. 

“That is a possible theory as to the reason behind the attack, Sara,” Ava looks at the captain with a concerned, “Which means that the trouble that comes with ASIs that I fear, might already be here. Look, it’s too late to do anything about it now. You’ve unshackled Gideon and the damage has already been done. I know you just wanted to help fix the anachronisms, but this,” Ava does a sweeping gesture to all the damage on the bridge, “All of this was to just make sure you four died. Imagine what might happen when they actually try to get Gideon and use her for their own purposes?”

“We can’t do anything about this right now, especially with the ship as damaged as it is, and Rory injured in the medbay,” Sara speaks up, her voice booming across the bridge, “So why don’t we just get back to the Time Bureau, park the Waverider in the hangar and get repairs started. Whilst that’s happening, we start devising a plan on how to proceed with this if the threat turns out to be real.”

Sara turns to Gideon, “Is the ship operational enough that you can fly us back to twenty-eighteen?”  
Gideon shakes her head, “There is some engine damage when they tried to breach the hull. I will require Mr Palmer’s assistance in patching it before we are able to make the jump.”  
“Alright,” Sara points at Ray and then gestures for him to move, “Fix the problem.”

“Right away captain,” Ray runs out of the bridge, the door opening and closing with a hiss as leaves.  
“I’ll get to work on cleaning up the mess of the robots,” Zari says, taking the initiative before her captain orders her.

“Once we return to the Time Bureau, we’ll want to take a look at some of those,” Ava adds, looking at the engineer who nods at the director and captain before exiting the bridge. 

Once more, it’s just Ava and Sara together again. The captain strolls up to the director, but her expression doesn’t have the same flirty intention behind it as it did an hour ago. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about this all those weeks ago,” Sara whispers, head down and looking at the ground.  
Ava’s hand slides under the captain’s chin and lifts her head up, “Hey, that’s ok. You and your team just wanted to help fix time. You did it for a noble reason, and it’s one of the many things I like about you Sara.”  
Sara’s eyes widen, and she looks at the director with a puzzled expression, “You still like me? Even after finding out I’ve potentially exposed the most powerful AI?”

Ava nods and a warm smile forms on her face, “Of course Sara. I’m annoyed that you kept it a secret and technically broke another one of the Time Bureau’s rules, but it’s no reason to stop liking you. Look, I’m still up for dinner on Friday night if you are. I’d like to give us a shot, but if-”

Ava doesn’t get to finish that sentence. Something’s stopping her, and for a brief flash of a moment, she doesn’t realise what it is. Then she realises it. It’s Sara’s lips and Ava can feel them on her own. Her heart briefly skips before she composes herself and reciprocates the act, eyes closing as her arms wrap around Sara, like the captain’s does her. 

Sara’s the first to pull away, but her hand lingers on the director’s face, “I want to give us a shot too. I’ve made the mistake of taking too long before, having the opportunity ripped away from me. I won’t let it happen it again.”

Ava smiles and brings her lips to Sara’s again for another kiss. When she pulls away, she grabs her time courier and begins putting in the coordinates for the Time Bureau. 

“I look forward to it Ms Lance, I’ll see you when you and your team arrive,” Ava nods as a white gateway opens up behind her.  
“We’ll see you soon,” Sara waves as Ava steps through the gateway before it closes shut behind her. 

The captain lets out a long breath of relief and practically collapses to the ground in exhaustion, lying flat on her back. 

She doesn’t hear the footsteps, it’s a hologram for that matter, but she sees Gideon’s face come into view before the rest of her body. The hologram bends forward and looks at the captain from the side.

“You two are so cute,” Gideon smirks and wiggles her finger in front of Sara’s face. 

The captain laughs into the air before her expression shifts to something more serious and looks back at the hologram, “We’re going to make sure you stay safe Gideon. You’ve saved our lives countless times, it’s time we save yours.”

“Thank you, Captain Lance,” Gideon smiles down at Sara.  
“Of course, Gideon,” Sara returns the smile, “You’re our family.”

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the story. As I said in the beginning, this was originally just a long-ish one-shot meant to just be an idea for a random episode (probably as a substitute for the "Here I Go Again" episode). This entire last chapter wasn't really meant to happen, and I was going to end it as the last robot is killed and Mick is sent to the medbay, but I did this chapter anyway. 
> 
> The reason I did this last chapter is because it allows the story-line to continue. So if you'd like me to continue with this, then let me know. I already have ideas on what can happen for future stories. As of now, I don't plan on working on any of those ideas, as I've got multiple other stories I've been writing for months that I'd like to continue on, but this entire thing was created in less than 48 hours so I don't mind continuing it. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and until the next time I post, goodbye.


End file.
